Speed tutoring? (1 Viewer)

[tristambrown]

I am wondering if anyone knows of any places in sydney or techniques (other than "practice") that help students improve their exam speed ?

I have been out of the education system for quite a while and now, having returned to study, am finding that the limited time available for exams is impeding my performance significantly.

I think my main problem is reading/comprehension speed as I had a similar problem with the UMAT yesterday in that the questions were not hard but the time simply was not there to read and comprehend to the level required by the questions.

Thanks in advance

Tristam Brown.

 

[Michiru]

Hey
I'm not sure how the umat works (because i've never done it) but for the HSC, my teacher told me bring in a highlighter and highlight all the important key words. Also, take note of the verbs (eg Compare, Justify, Explain etc) and what is expected of you to do for each of those verbs.

Also, exams is timed. So for example with Chem, there's 3 sections. At the front of the paper, there's a guide to how much time you should allocate to each of the sections. Stick to the time guides, but also keep in mind where your weaknesses lie, so you may need to spend extra time on them.

Anyways, pm me if u have any other questions. If you want, I can tutor you. =)

Good luck!

 

[Gryphondarks]

I have three things to add:

(1) As most UMAT prep courses will tell you, the only way to improve speed is to practice, practice, practice. Alternatively, look at UNSW's Learning Centre http://www.lc.unsw.edu.au/ there may be some more ideas there...

(2) In speed reading, I don't know how much Michiru's idea of highlighting key words/verbs etc would help... okay, when trying to understand an essay question that's fine, but when you're trying to do one question a minute things get a bit out of hand.

(3) As for timing in exams like Chemistry where they suggest a pretty good approach for timing the different sections, I think borrowing time from one section and adding it to another always helps. This is esp the case with Paper 1 in English. Comprehension can be done MUCH faster than the essay (again, practice!) and similarly if you're clever about it, the creative section can be done efficiently. This allows you to write a monster essay that gets close to full marks. And trust me, it does happen (full marks, that is) - I can say that from experience (not to brag or anything). Having said that, though, bear in mind always that each section is worth the same! So really (a) be fast but (b) don't rush (cos then you'll do stupid things like not read the question for a simple 2 marks in comprehension, and lose that needlessly).

Hope that helped and good luck!

 

[tristambrown]

Thanks so much for the advice -

I'm taking that and combining it with some speed reading trainign programs that ive found floating around on the net.

Hopefully i can get the speed thing down by the time the hsc exams roll around

cheers

Tristam